This volume brings together selected contributions on fundamental challenges of population ageing. All of the articles evolved from an empirical research training course in population studies at the University of Bamberg. The first two contributions deal with self-perceived health measures. The first article analyses the effect of transition into retirement on self-perceived health. The second contribution focuses on methodological issues concerning the comparability of self-perceived health and discusses different strategies to account for cross-national variation in scaling subjective health. The last contribution deals with gender-related aspects of intergenerational transfers. These up-to-date research questions are empirically investigated using the first two waves of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE).